Reviews

An excerpt from a new review of Prime Minister Infinity – U.K. for 2017 at Dr. Sean’s Diary:

As in real world the wheels came off the Tory campaign towards the end with a series of scandals and bad media stories (the game doesn’t exactly specific about what – expenses, dementia tax?) and I started to put things around. The North and Wales finally swung back to Labour, but my forays across the border to stick it to the Scots Nats (how I tried and tried to win back Glasgow Central as a trophy seat) proved feeble. Central London, however, stayed solidly red without me (or a virtual John McDonald) ever setting foot there.

There are some specific criticisms in the review, such as the election night working better for an American system and certain Americanisms. These are fair criticisms, and the game is a port of an American game (that’s the only way it could have been made).

Having said that, PMI – U.K. and Canada will receive updates in the next several months. If any Brits want to tell me of any Americanisms in the game, and what the corresponding British phrases would be, feel free to do so.

“President Forever 2016 (PC game). 270soft: A computer game that allows you to manage the political campaign for any of the candidates for selected presidential elections. It gets revised every few years, and I’ve played the various versions spanning back a decade or so. I still recall fondly one Thanksgiving evening when Mary’s nephew, Will, and I spent a number of hours trying to get Eugene Debs to win the 1912 presidency-we were not successful, but he did win a number of key states. The latest revision allows for primaries, VP selection, debates, advertising, endorsers, scandals, and all kinds of neat stuff. Recommended for the political junkie who wants to take things “to the next level.”“

Lewers’ book, about elections and politics from the perspective of the citizenry (instead of politicians or operatives), is available on Amazon here.

The good: “I have little doubt many armchair politicians will have a blast taking the helm of their favourite parties[.]”

The bad:

1. Chad says there were grammar and spelling mistakes. Not just mistakes, but frequent mistakes.

I’m not sure what he’s referring to, and no one else has reported such problems – so this was a little frustrating. If anyone has specific examples of spelling or grammar mistakes, please post them here and they will be fixed with the next release.

2. The high-score system didn’t reward his NDP and Green campaigns adequately.

This is a good point – I’ll take a look at the high-score algorithm again, but I can imagine it wouldn’t give the Greens, say, that high of a score even if they achieved their campaign goal of 1 seat, simply because the shift in seats and percentages would still be quite small absolutely speaking.

3. “[A] post-election message stated [May] failed to earn the Greens a place in the government, which was simply false, given that she won a riding.”

My understanding is: she would be part of Parliament, but not of the government (unless the Greens were part of a governing coalition). Political wonks’ feedback much appreciated on this.

4. “[M]ost of my beefs with Prime Minister Forever: Canada 2011 mirror my issues with real Canadian elections, such as our first past the post system.”

It’s not usual that we get complaints that the game works the way that country’s electoral system is supposed to work! (However, it would be nice to try an election out with a different electoral system, which is what the preference system in the game will do – it will be enabled probably in a few weeks or so, but it’s not high-priority right now.)

This leads me to the Great Onion of Complaint: complaints about games are like an onion. In the beginning, there are big complaints, which are like the outside layer of an onion. Once you fix those problems, there is another layer of complaint, which is like the next layer of the onion. After you fix those things, there is another layer, and so on. When people are complaining that there are grammatical errors, and that the game works as the electoral system is supposed to work (but they don’t like reality!), then from a game developer’s perspective, those are good complaints.